Something is in the Air

Macworld Expo is this week and, true to Apple form, they pulled it off perfectly. Complete with bait and switch. On Monday, there was a “supposed” leak of Steve Jobs’ keynote and many people fell for it. Notably, Steve Rubel (who has a history of being reactionary and wrong), called it reliable because it was released on Wikipedia:

The reason I believe it’s real is because it leaked on Wikipedia. And Wikipedia promotes anonymity. So it’s very hard to trace who placed the item and his/her motives. I could be wrong. But my gut is, this is the real deal and it’s a big moment in the history of public relations.

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So come back tomorrow and then … ya’ll make fun of me for being gullible and believing stuff on Wikipedia.

We’re making fun of you, Steve. I don’t think you follow me on Twitter, but you should (I’m @technosailor). If you had, you’d know I called you on it yesterday (though I admit misquoting you on “the worst PR disaster” bit).

The point is that, Apple pulled a classic “bait and switch” and almost everyone in the tech community believed it, by nature of the fact that it was about the only thing on Techmeme yesterday. In fact, the keynote had absolutely nothing to do with what was leaked. Pocket Lint has the leaked notes.

I don’t want to pile on Steve though. I just want to point out that, in fact, Apple had a stellar showing at Macworld today announcing the new Macbook Air, which promptly caused some dyed in the wool Windows users to drool, as well as a host of other iTunes, iPod and iPhone announcements. So congrats, Apple, on a great day.

Aaron Brazell is a Baltimore, MD-based WordPress developer, A Sr. Web Enginner at 10up, a co-founder at WP Engine, WordPress core contributor and author. He wrote the book WordPress Bible and has been publishing on the web since 2000. You can follow him on Twitter, on his personal blog and view his photography at The Aperture Filter.